Bible Think Tank

This site is designed to help you interact with others about God's Word. I further some thoughts we developed during morning and evening gatherings at church. I have my NT translations from the original Greek to English. Also, I have book reviews and other current events.

Monday, November 09, 2009

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

People crave relationship. God infused this desire into our very being. In trinitarian community, God made man and after fashioning Adam in His own image, and this was the first creation that wasn't good. Remember after each day... God said "it is good". But when He made man, He said "it is not good for man to be alone." So God set out to find man a suitable helper. No creature He had made was adaquate to be Adam's partner, so God made Eve. While there is immense and romantic imagery we could observe about husband and wife, we want to simply observe that humans need relationship. We need relationships of varying kinds (Romance, friendship, co-workers, family). It is not good for man to be alone.

Enter our society's answer to this craving. In a culture where good fences make good neighbors and where we do not know the name of the family across the street, we create spaces for friends to gather. Remember the theme song to the late, great tv show Cheers? "You wanna go where everybody know your name." Hopefully it isnt a bar for you, but can you think of a place where you and your friends gather to just be together. I'm a coffegeek and for my ilk, the coffeeshop is the place where friends gather. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks wants his shops to that special gathering spot for friends all around the world. He calls it what many marketers call it, The Third Place. The third place is that spot aside from home and work where you spend your time gathering. Ray Oldenburg coined the phrase and this is how he describes The Third Place. It is "a generic designation for a great variety of public places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work." (Oldenburg, Ray. The Great Good Place. 1999. p.16.) These are secular guys expressing the Christian value of community.

So why not the church? Can the church be the Third Place for people craving community? I think so. I believe that the Church merges all the loftiest hungers of the human spirit. Think of it: the Church experience merges relationship, celebration, self-betterment, and spirituality all in one place. People look for these elements to life in a variety of other pursuits but they are all waiting in the one place so many people don't want to look.

As you experience Bethany, ask yourself how you can make it your Third Place. Ask yourself how you can make it someone elses's Third Place. As we find fulfillment within Christian community, let us give God the glory for His redeeming work of making His Church a family!

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Thursday, November 05, 2009

Evaluate!

It's Time to Review

At Bethany, our elders have committed to annually reviewing the effectiveness of our ministries. We believe that God wants our very best, the first-fruit of our labor. So we want to give Him our all, our best, a church that is the most effective that it can be. So we do our best, then we evaluate. We are using "The Eight Systems of the Church" model created by Church Leader Insights as a starting place for our church-wide review. At next week's meeting, we begin with the "Weekend Service" system.


Reviewing the "Weekend Service" System

We call our weekend service "Sunday Morning Worship Gathering". What happens from 10:30am-12:00pm every Sunday?
  • We praise the Triune God (Father, Son, Spirit).
  • We examine His Word for direction in life.
  • We make our gifts to His work, the Church.
  • We greet one another and encourage each other for godly living.
  • We read His Word publicly.


Some Questions

Toward You

  • How meaningful is this gathering to your faith and walk?
  • Do we motivate you for godliness?
  • Do we mobilize and equip you for your areas of ministry service?
  • Do we stir your passions toward God?
  • Do we do these things graciously or strictly?

Toward God

  • Is the service rigidly structured or a free-flowing expression of our gratitude toward God?
  • Is God blessed by our expressions of thanks?
  • Is He honored by our use of His Word?

Some Links that We are Using in Our Evaluation